Recently Indiewire rounded up their favorites, including thoughtful indies like Moon and Primer, blockbusters like Inception and Arrival, and even a few things that push the limits of the definition of sci-fi—does Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind count? Michel Gondry has created his own sub-genre in much the same way people like Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers have, so does his use of a few near-future trappings mean that ESotSM can be called SF? What are some of your picks for best science fiction film of the 21st Century?
And while we were over the moon that they included Don Hertzfeldt’s haunting short, World of Tomorrow, but we were also struck by the dearth or optimism on this list. The only film that can really be seen as a hopeful look at the future is Wall-E…and honestly, we’re not convinced that those space-atrophied Earthers have much of a chance. Is that what the past seventeen years of science fiction has given us—one gritty doomsday scenario after another? Or is it simply that optimistic SF doesn’t resonate enough to make a list of classics?
Having said that, we love their pick for number one, even though it is a bleak slice of dystopia. You can head over to Indiewire to see the full list, and let us know your picks for the best SF in the comments!
I would have been livid if they’d made any other choice for number one.
Also, holy crap, I thought that at least four of those were late 90s films.
Please add “so far” or my skin will continue to crawl.
Good point, Ghostly1 – didn’t mean to inadvertently create a dystopia with that headline.
I’d argue Arrival is actually a very positive movie, though the conclusion of the protagonists personal story is sad and heartbreakingly tragic, it envisions a future where all of humanity is united. All in all, I actually really like this list, which is pretty rare for internet lists. Good collection of films.
Trying to remember, without referring to a list, these five are my best science fiction movies for the 21st C., starting with #1.
Arrival (2016)
Prometheus (2012)
The Martian (2015)
Ex Machina (2014)
EDIT: ++ Interstellar (2014) — I forgot this one – how could I?! — easily a top five. SUPERB SF film.
Moon (2009)
-Ken
I’m really-really baffled by the abscence of “Cloud Atlas” on this otherwise great and diverse list.
A very solid list – Children Of Men is a stone-cold masterpiece, and absolutely deserves its spot at the top.
Nice to see some love for Coherence, too – I would actually rank it higher than they did.
A couple films that I would add, even though they dance around the blurry line between sci-fi and fantasy, are Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige and Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain.
I take issue with any list that ranks Minority Report higher than Arrival.
I would rank both “WALL-E” and “Arrival” higher on my list, and “Her” way lower. And yes, I’m sick and tired of dystopian futures, both in blockbuster movies and in YA fiction. Let’s get back to some Star Trekish optimism now and then, please. (No, not JJ-style.) I agree with Brett Windnagle @@.-@ that Arrival has a fairly hopeful vision of the future, all things considered. Though whether the future can still be considered the “future,” that’s another question!
I’m fine with a great dystopia (Children of Men, Gattaca, etc.), I just don’t like the fact that popular culture now is so dominated by dystopian pictures of the future. Maybe one of these years people will start to identify the All-Dystopia-All-the-Time Future as a tired cliche, on the order of the redhead in comics, and start doing something different and more nuanced. I figure the future will probably have really terrible stuff and really great stuff, rather like the past and present.
I have not seen all the movies on the Indiewire list, so I can’t judge comparative worth, but my own list would include “The Martian.” I can understand their thinking that “Mad Max: Fury Road” is action rather than sci fi, but I’m not clear on why they excluded “Gravity.”
1) Guardians of the Galaxy
2) The Martian
3) Interstellar
4) Wall-e
5) Rogue One
Yes I like the space opera sub genre
I agree with Radda re: Cloud Atlas, which seems destined for “cult movie” status, with a few viewers being over the moon about it and everyone else either dismissing or not getting it. The challenging formal structure of the film is one factor here, but I suspect the “whitewashing” controversy – for example, making up Jim Burgess to look “Asian” in the techno-future sequence – has put off critics and others from giving Cloud Atlas the second look it deserves.
(I do sympathize with efforts to call out ethnically inappropriate casting, as with the recent version of Ghost in the Shell, but the point that Wachowski/Tykwer/Wachowski were trying to make about the mutability of ethnic (and to a lesser extent gender) identity practically demanded the casting selections they made. If there wasn’t a long and deplorable tradition of “yellowface” casting in Hollywood cinema, no one would have made a fuss about it. As it is, I do see the use of “yellowface” in Cloud Atlas as a flaw but not a fatal one.)
Otherwise, not much to say about IndieWire’s list except I mostly agree with it, though I do think that (besides Cloud Atlas) they shouldn’t have left off Mad Max: Fury Road and Gravity. Besides Cloud Atlas, my favorite 21st-century sf films are WALL-E and Her.
1. Serenity [2005]
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Force Awakens
4. Cloud Atlas
@9 and @10, agree that the Martian should be in there somewhere. One of the few sci-fi movies that delves into the practical problem-solving aspects of space travel without being boring. I saw Children of Men and intellectually I perceived a great movie, but it left me cold and unmoved. I think maybe it’s the Clive Owen thing. For some reason I just can’t warm up to him no matter what role he’s playing. Honestly the only thing I’ve ever seen him in that rang true for me was his small part in Bourne Identity.
I’d probably put A.I. on the list just because of the way it looked, even though I thought the mountain of saccharine goo on top of it was just way too much. And Star Trek Prime advocates be damned, I really enjoyed the 2009 reboot. The next two? Pffffft.
I’d move Looper up too – loved that movie.
Looper is easily my favorite.
I don’t understand all this Arrival love. It was a great concept, but incredibly boring. Probably a good book, but as a movie, it was a snore.
Moon, Another earth, Prometheus, Ex Machina, The Martian
The Man from Earth.
Serenity is a glaring omission, but I think this list is pretty solid.
Curious to see no mention of The Force Awakens, but I can understand why. The films on this list are all very cerebral movies (including Wall-E if you take in the full context of what they are saying there!)
Since the list comes from IndieWire, I can understand the absence of big budget space opera films like Rogue One, Serenity, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. which happen to be MY favorites of this century. More baffling is the absence of films like The Martian and Gravity. Also, I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I’ve never thought of it as Science Fiction.
15. dirkgently: Depends what you expected from it. It doesn’t have the usual evil alien invasion scenario or lasers and dogfights in space.
What it does have is emotional and intellectual depth. Maybe it helps if you’ve experienced a personal loss. The main character’s decision to have a child has profound consequences, both personal and universal, which her husband cannot accept. Arrival is beautiful and asks a question not easily answered.
I also don’t understand the love Arrival gets. Overall I guess I liked it, but I just can’t get past how learning a language that doesn’t have a concept of time suddenly gives you access to your entire timeline, that makes no sense. It just seems way too “magical” to be called sci-fi at that point. I get the emotional impact of her choice to still have her child, knowing what would happen. That decision is the point of the whole movie, but it could have been set up in a way that actually made sense. I would like 2 different movies. One about an alien language that makes sense; I really liked the issues it brought up with misinterpreting things between the languages like the word weapon and the consequences of getting that wrong. And a second one that asks if you would still have a child if you knew that child would die, but set up the way to acquire that knowledge in a way that is plausible.
Not only are these one and two for this list, they’re my one and two for my all-time favorite movies:
1) Another Earth
2) Donnie Darko
The ordering is somewhat up in the air. I should probably re-watch Donnie Darko to determine if I should actually let Another Earth supplant it at the top.
Other than that, it’s astonishing how many great movies are on that list, and how many remain just off it. Children of Men, while I liked it, probably wouldn’t make my top 25 SF movies of the 21st century, and Her definitely wouldn’t. I found Her annoying enough that I either quit watching it or at some point just fast-forwarded through it.
And thanks for the link! I watched a review of Upstream Color several years ago and made a mental note to check it out, but for the life of me, no matter what I Googled, I couldn’t remember the name.
Okay, I know everyone is going to turn on me like wolves, but I thought Children of Men was greatly overrated. I would have put Arrival as number one. A number of these films are so hard to find that I, for one, can’t comment. But I was pleased to see such lesser known items as Paprika and The Host high on the list.
The best film by far although it had quite a few continuity errors was LOGAN, the best series was game of thrones, both brilliant.
“and even a few things that push the limits of the definition of sci-fi—does Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind count?”
But of course it does. If Fahrenheit 451 is sci-fi, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind certainly is.
I loved GRAVITY, but I don’t consider it to be science fiction. Its flaunting of physics qualifies as fantasy, but there’s not really anything speculative about it. It’s an action movie set in space while remaining fully grounded in the current day. I’d call FURY ROAD SF before I’d apply that term to GRAVITY.
Great list. Some I wasn’t aware of that I will need add to my watch list. I would like to give at least an honorable mention to a film that seems to be not well known, “Predestination”, based on Robert Heinlein’s short story “All You Zombies”. Brilliant time travel film, starring Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook (who deserves an Oscar for her performance).
My list is based on movies I continue to re-watch.
Sunshine
Edge of Tomorrow
Force Awakens
Signs
The Martian
The Mist
1. The The Martian
2. Serenity.
3. Of course Galaxy Quest missed by a single year, but I am still putting it on my list, but at number 3 because it didn’t squeak in. So sue me!
Jane Yolen
I’m guessing that they didn’t consider Gravity and The Martian to be science fiction films. Hugo voters did, giving both of them the Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form award. They clearly belong on the list.
I was happy to see Her, my choice for best SF film of 2013 (and tragically not even on the Hugo ballot!), get some recognition from IndieWire. (Yes, I ranked it above Gravity. Gravity was a fun ride, but Her left me with a lot more to think about after watching.) Ditto World of Tomorrow, another Hugo ballot omission.
1.) Wall-E
2.) Inception
3.) Serenity
4.) Minority Report
5.) Oblivion
While I generally agree with the list…at least the films I’ve seen….the top three all left me in emotionally distress for weeks after seeing them.
21. Eyeless621: It’s only magical if you would consider time travel magical. Time travel stories used mechanical means, like a TARDIS, to move thru space and time. Learning a language that changes your perception of time, making it non-linear, while you continue to exist in linear space-time, is more plausible than changing the structure of the universe. Even in our current reality, thinking in a different language can affect how we look at the world.
Here’s an interesting background article on Ted Chiang that touches on the issue of language reprogramming minds:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fiction
Also, the two strands of the story depend on each other. The personal consequence comes out of the larger context. Unbraiding them would diminish both.
How completely delighted I was to discover that IndieWire & I agree that CHILDREN OF MEN comes in #1! Many great picks on their list, except that A.I. deserves a much higher spot than the honorable mentions.
The Lobster was pretty damned awesome. But I enjoyed Arrival most.
I’m not sure how you rank Edge of Tomorrow ahead of Moon, or how you miss the Martian off completely.
I can’t name only one. So here’s my list (so far) —
28 Days Later (2002)
After Earth (2013)
Arrival (2016)
Attack the Block (2011)
Babylon A.D. (2008)
Children of Men (2007)
Déjà Vu (2006)
Europa Report (2013)
The Fountain (2007)
The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
The Host (2006)
Imposter (2002)
Logan (2017)
The Man from Earth (2007)
Monsters (2010)
Moon (2009)
Reign of Fire (2002)
Sleep Dealer (2008)
Sunshine (2007)
Train to Busan (2015)
Voices of a Distant Star (2002)
Z for Zachariah (2015)
I’m fascinated by all the questioning of Eternal Sunshine… It’s built around the fundamental premise of SF: tell us what will happen to people once we can do X. Maybe readers are confused about current tech? We’re learning how to desensitize some traumatic memories sometimes, but that kind of focused removal of long-term memory is a long way past what can be done.
It does seem that the reviewer(s?) leaned toward the edgier and/or left-political/dystopic films (e.g., Snowpiercer — I lean left by US standards but didn’t hear anything that made me think it would outdo the notoriously ridiculous On Wheels (John Jakes novel from just before the first oil crisis). That could explain why The Martian got left out.
@31. GB, thank you for finally bringing some sanity by mentioning Oblivion!
I appreciated the list for the ones it did mention, and for suggesting some that I haven’t seen yet, but genuinely appalled at some movies making it over Oblivion. In fact, if only to make the list less Tom Cruisey (jk he’s cool) I’d consider substituting Oblivion for Edge of Tomorrow, which while fun and tense had nothing of the cerebral quality or sense of scale that Oblivion brought in spades. Oh and the music!
23. MichaeleJordan, I won’t turn on you like a wolf as long as you don’t suggest removing Children of Men entirely ;)
I personally loved Prometheus, so I know all about the shunning.
And can I get some serious opinions of Snowpiercer? I’m so on the fence with that one.